Well, one thing can be certain about the entity called CaTAI X: it will
almost certainly have well-formed substructs called "ego" and "hubris." And
there's *nothing wrong with that.*

;-) :-)

G'luck, pardner. We're shooting for the same goals.

jb

PS - Eliezer: Kurzweil's book "The Age of Intelligent Machines* was
published in 1990, nine years before "...Spiritual..." If you started
writing about this stuff "two years before [Spiritual,]" then Kurzweil still
got the jump on you by at least 7 years. Fyi. Also, Kurzweil does in fact
tip hat to Moravec in "Spiritual," as a cursory examination of the index
reveals. (The converse, however, isn't true.) As for Vernor Vinge, I
suspect that's a political choice; these guys are trying to move the
discussion into the mainstream of social discourse; the whole field is
already tainted with wide-eyed sci-fi lunacy, from the public's
perspective; it behooves serious writers in this area, however much they
may be fans of sci-fi, to distance themselves from it in popular works.
(Note I'm not making a value judgement; I've been reading Vinge for years
and agree with you that sci-fi is one of the best mind tools out there.) As
for not tipping hat to you, well, I've read pretty deeply across this whole
space and only came across you yesterday by way of Brian, so perhaps
Kurzweil simply hadn't heard of you yet either. Perhaps Sally and co. can
do something for your PR. ;-)

PPS - for the record, since Eliezer's message in part responds to an opinion
expressed by me in a private communication to Brian, here's the crux of what
I said that he's responding to:

BTW, per that doc: 81% very thoughtful, though nothing
particularly novel in that 81%. 19% utter subjective mumbling,
philosophical braindamage, ignorance (literal or intentional) of
opposing well-formed arguments from the history of philosophy,
logical missteps and just flat bad argument, hubris and
poppycock. This joker actually thinks he can name the "most
significant" human being? Beyond the incredible brain fog
necessary to believe in any kind of general, objective,
quantifiable meaning for "significance" of human life, what kind
of egomaniac really believes they have the perspective to judge
that even assuming it exists? The problem I have, Brian, with
this and most other futurists' communications is that they combine
what is generally well-formed logical thought, extrapolation,
educated opinion, etc. with what is extremist rhetoric and bad
amateur metaphysics. (In Tipler's case, worse, religion.) That
leads to the whole segment of futurist thought as being treated by
the mainstream as complete lunatic fringe thought... and that
certainly doesn't help the cause. That's why I particularly
appreciate Kurzweil. He's plain enough to be understood by, say,
my parents (who've read his book) and sober enough to be taken
seriously, while talking about the same things.